Apple may have stopped the original homepod earlier this year, but fortunately the company still supports it with useful new features. If you have a homepod and take a new 4K Apple TV, your speaker will make a better home theater friend than before. As considered by MacRumor, the latest 4K 4K Apple TV supports the ARC standard (Audio Returns Channel) and Earc (Enhanced Arc) on HDMI.
What this means in practice is that Apple TV 4K can wirelessly send all audio from your television to the homepod (or a pair of stereo speaker homepod). Previously, Homepod could work as an audio output device for Apple TV – but now, Apple TV 4K can pass all audio from the TV wirelessly to the homepod. The cable box, console, or other set-top box can be played by their audio back through the homepod, making it a much better home theater friend.
To activate this, just go to the audio output settings on your Apple TV – from there, you can make sure the homepod is selected as your output source. And that’s where you will activate the audio back channel settings (i.e., a bit strange, marked like in beta). Providing your TV (or recipient!) Supports EARC, you will be fine.
While Homepod did not function properly as an audio output device when it was first launched, Apple made it more useful when pairing it with Apple TV. Last fall, Apple officially brought Dolby Atmos support to Homepod, although the feature did not work with smaller mini homepod speakers. Mini homepod will not work with these new arc-based features. It was not a big surprise, because small speakers were significantly quieter than the original homepod, making it not too suitable for home theater arrangements.